Cedric Diggory is a Prat
by CinderellaAtTheBall
Summary: The fact that Cedric Diggory beat Gryffindor at Quidditch aside, there's another reason why Fred Weasley just can't stand him...because Angelina Johnson can. Eventual FredxAngelina, rated T for later chapters.
1. Chapter 1

**CatB: Hey, guys, I'm back! This officially ends my veryyyyyy long fanfic hiatus! (It's been about a year and a half, I believe. D:)  
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**Uhm, so, my thoughts before you read this: I really liked the premise of this story. After having written it out, though, I kind of feel...disappointed. The tense is weird and difficult to write in, and I hate the way it wanders all over the place (the stream of consciousness-ness is probably really hard to follow...). I still love the idea behind it, though, so maybe I'll do some revisions and keep going. Depends on the type of feedback I get.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I merely borrow the characters for fanfiction fun. I am not making any money off of this.  
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Cedric Diggory is the biggest prat I've met. He's a good sport even when he loses, he never breaks the rules or even gets in trouble, and all the ladies love him. You wouldn't believe the number of conversations I have overheard concerning his muscles, grey eyes, and "sweet disposition." But, you know, I might have been able to forgive him for being such a prat and beating Gryffindor at Quidditch if it weren't for the fact that Angelina Johnson is all caught up in the Cedric-mania, too. Normally she is the most level-headed girl I know when it comes to boys (which isn't saying much, mind you), but even she giggles at any mention of his name and joins in conversations about how soft his hair supposedly is. And, see, if it weren't for Diggory, I might be able to have at least one conversation with her that didn't involve him. Even when I was trying to ask her out, she managed to bring him up…

"_Hey, Angelina!" I hollered, motioning for her to take a seat next to me at breakfast one rainy Friday morning. _

"_Hey, Fred." She smiled and began to pile her plate high with everything in sight. What an appetite that girl has. _

"_Do you wanna hang out in Hogsmeade with me?" I said casually, grabbing the last piece of toast before she could._

_Her smile drooped slightly. "'I'm sorry, Fred, but I've already said I'll go with-"_

Not Diggory, not Diggory, not Diggory.

"_-just a couple of us girls, you know."_

"_Come on! Don't you think I'd be fun to have around, for comic relief?" I prayed that she would say yes this time, all the while giving her my best, irresistible puppy-dog face. _

"_Well, you could come with us," she said doubtfully, "but, I mean, we're going to be talking about girly stuff. Like, Alicia wants to dissect a conversation she had with Cedric, and somehow I really don't think you want to hear all that."_

_My spirits fell faster than Ron's owl Pig with a heavy package. "You're right, I don't," I muttered, glaring at Diggory's profile across the Hall. Bad idea. She turned to see who I was looking at._

"_You know, I hear he has a girlfriend now," she said sadly, and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. _What a tragedy.

_All day, Angelina wondered why I was so angry. As if I was going to tell her how much I resented her beloved Cedric._

_As if._

Now, can you blame me for wishing the Basilisk had gotten him back in our fourth year? All he's got going for him is a pretty face, it's not like there's anything _great_ about him, besides his annoying ability to get every girl in this school talking about him nonstop. Don't get me wrong, George and I have our fan base, too, but ours is lacking in size and enthusiasm, a fact we are reminded of everyday when we pass a giggling gaggle of girls all whispering about when they are going to slip Diggory a Love Potion or put him under the dreaded Infatuation Incantation. Funny thing about the Infatuation Incantation: girls don't mind being put under it, but we fellows find the experience absolutely horrific. Anyway, my point is, Cedric Diggory makes it hard for the rest of us. No girl wants to go out with you once he enters the picture. Call me bitter, call me jealous, it's still true.

George doesn't understand why I don't just _tell _Angelina how I feel about her. It's not that simple. I've known her for years, we practically grew up together. It's gotten to the point where we're such good friends that I don't want to ruin it by trying to be something more, unless I'm absolutely sure she feels the same way. Still, George reckons I should at least tell her that I hate it when she talks about Cedric, but I can't do that either. She would ask too many questions, and, inevitably, my feelings for her would be revealed. Like I said, I'm waiting for some kind of sign that she likes me back before I go screwing up six years of (mostly) solid friendship.

I am, for the most part, honest with Angelina, though. Cedric-related conversations aside, I'm not afraid to tell her when she's being annoying or acting like an idiot. And when I do tell her off, she doesn't get upset with me like most girls would. But then, Angelina Johnson is not most girls. I just wish she could see that.

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><p>Angelina drops into the seat next to me at dinner. "How was Hogsmeade?" she asks.<p>

I shrug. "Didn't go."

Her face falls. "Oh. That would explain why we couldn't find you."

"You were looking for me? Why?" I ask. "Missed my charm and delightful sense of humor, did you?"

"Very funny," she says with a roll of her eyes. "No, I just wanted to ask you something."

"Oh?" I say, raising an eyebrow.

"It doesn't matter anymore," she says quickly, looking down. Is she embarrassed about something? It comes as a shock to me because she hardly ever is. "Anyway, why didn't you go to Hogsmeade?"

I don't berate her for the change of subject because I have no interest in interrogating her about her embarrassment. It probably had something to do with Diggory, anyway. She's never told me, but I'm almost positive she has a thing for him. It would explain why she's constantly bringing him up. It suddenly occurs to me that we've never talked about who we like. It's a good thing, really, because I wouldn't want to lie and I _certainly_ wouldn't want to hear her gush about Diggory more than she already does.

Angelina clears her throat. "Fred? Did you hear me?"

Blast. Got lost in my thoughts again. "Oh, George and I were working on some joke shop stuff."

"Yeah? Any luck with that?" she asks.

I shrug again. "Sure. We've fixed one of the problems with the Nosebleed Nougat, we just have to retest it to make sure it's fully functional now."

She groans. "Great, when did you have in mind? 'Cause I don't fancy trying to do my homework with a bunch of first years running around with blood dripping down their faces." She shudders.

I grin widely at her. "Oh, you'll see."

She smacks my arm, hard. "At least give me a heads up, will you? Or would you like my inability to properly complete my Charms homework going on your conscience?"

"I make no promises," I say, scooting away before she can hit me again. Instead of scooting after me, however, she just shakes her head and turns her attention to Katie Bell and Alicia Spinnet.

I, meanwhile, have just moved myself right next to George.

"So, I take it she didn't enjoy hearing about the progress we made today?" he asks, indicating Angelina.

"Not at all," I laugh. "But I didn't think she would."

"It's really a shame she's not more supportive, though," George said soberly.

"Nah, she'll come around," I say, waving my hand. "She just doesn't think it's going to work out. It's up to us to prove her wrong."

George nods. "Right."

"While she's off being a successful professional Quidditch player," I continue, "we'll be raking in millions as owners of our very own, very successful joke shop."

"But don't forget to make some time for your kids," George teases.

"I don't think we need to worry about that just yet," I say, wincing. The thought of having children scares me. I think that having children would suck all the fun right out of me, and people need cheering up these days, what with You-Know-Who being back and all. If I ever have kids, I'll probably eat a Skiving Snackbox every day just so I won't have to deal with them. Angelina doesn't want kids either. At least, that's what she's told me. They would just get in the way of her career, she says.

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><p>George and I haven't made any concrete decisions concerning the Snackboxes before dinner is over, so we make a pact to continue the discussion after practice.<p>

"The weather looks pretty horrible," I comment loudly. Angelina hears me, just like I wanted her to.

"Yeah, well, we need practice in all weather," she yells back, standing. Alicia and Katie follow suit.

George and I stand as well, and, together with Harry and Ron, head down to the pitch with the three girls.

In the changing room, Angelina tells us there are going to be some spectators in the stands. We all know that by "spectators" she means "Slytherins." She's clearly trying way too hard to be casual about it all, and that's what gives it all away.

Practice is, well, horrible, to say the least. If I were to have a drink of whiskey for every time ickle Ronniekins drops or misses the Quaffle, let's just say I would be a very happy man. At one point, he even manages to hit poor Katie in the face in an attempt to pass it.

I roll my eyes, fly over to Katie, and offer her a small, purple candy. Perfect. Now George and I can test out our antidote for Blood Blisterpods.

Angelina keeps blowing her whistle, making it difficult for us to get any real practicing done. The Slytherins in the stands have now begun chanting at us.

Katie's nosebleed isn't clearing up, even though I told her it would. I reach into my pocket and pull out a bag of the small purple sweets. Uh-oh. It wasn't the _antidote_, it was an actual Blood Blisterpod. I inform George of this and we both fly quickly over to Katie. By this time, Angelina has blown her whistle and is heading over to her, too.

George and I take Katie to the hospital wing while the rest of the team cleans up and tries to forget about the awful practice. Once we've placed her in the care of Madam Pomfrey, I head back to the common room to work on the Snackboxes. I tell George he can stay with Katie, though, because I know he likes her. He promises he'll come up soon.

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><p>In the common room, I find Angelina curled up on an armchair by the fire. I decide to be something of a gentleman and sit on the arm of the chair instead of kicking her off like I normally would.<p>

"That practice was terrible," she mumbles, gazing into the flames as if transfixed.

"Could've been worse," I say bracingly, patting her shoulder a few times.

"Really?" she snaps, turning to me. "How so?"

I choose my reply carefully. "Well, Katie could have eaten a Blood Blisterpod antidote, which is what I thought I gave her, _instead_ of the Blood Blisterpod, and…oh wait, that would have been a good thing. You're right, practice was terrible. We really sucked." I'm hoping that by agreeing with her, she'll change her attitude. She hates it when I agree with her.

She narrows her eyes at me. "Are you trying to tell me that you were trying to test one of _your antidotes _on Katie?" Her voice is dangerously soft.

"I thought it was a good idea at the time," I say innocently.

"FRED WEASLEY!" she yells, ignoring the stares of everyone in the room. Blimey, that girl's got a set of lungs. "How dare you ruin _my _practice with _your _STUPID JOKE STORE MERCHANDISE!"

"C'mon, Angie," I plead, "we weren't doing that well anyway, you've got to admit-"

"_Don't_ call me Angie," she says frostily, getting up from the chair. "And don't even try and apologize. I _told _you to warn me when you were going to be testing your..." she wrinkles her nose, "…products."

And with that, she walks away.

I debate running after her and telling her I made no such agreement to warn her, but I don't. She'll be over it by tomorrow anyway.

**CatB: So, thoughts? How was the tense and the stream of consciousness style? Was it confusing?**

**PLEASE give me any and all of your honest advice and criticism, I would greatly appreciate it. :)  
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	2. Chapter 2

**CatB: Happy April Fool's, guys! (This chapter isn't a joke, though, I swear!) Haven't updated in forever, sorry about that. Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: As usual, I don't own Harry Potter and am not making money off of this story. **

Angelina is apparently not over last night, because this morning she walked down to breakfast with Katie and Alicia and hasn't looked my way once. Honestly, I don't know why she's still upset. She's being ridiculous, and I plan to tell her so.

"Oi, Angelina," I say, butting into her discussion with the other Chasers. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

She doesn't even pretend not to hear me. "No."

"Please?" I ask in my most polite tone, the one I usually reserve for talking with my mum.

"You're being rude, Fred. I'm trying to have a conversation here," she tells me before turning her back. I should have realized she wouldn't give in quite so easily. I'm not expecting her to keep this up for long, but she's not the type to be won over by a sweet voice.

I sigh loudly but begin to fill my plate with pancakes. I'll continue to badger her later, I decide. She can't ignore me forever.

Walking into Charms, I see that there is one empty seat left at Angelina's table. I quickly walk over with a friendly smile, but just as I reach the chair, Angelina pulls her bag onto the seat. "Sorry, this seat's taken."

I don't let my smile falter. "Well, save me a seat in Defense, then?"

"Don't count on it," she retorts.

"I'm not," I say lightly, but I'm beginning to realize that Angelina is well and truly pissed at me. Although I sit with George during the lesson, I find myself looking over at her more often than usual, trying to come up with a way to make her forgive me. I run through flowers and chocolates before dismissing them as too romantic and girly. Maybe I can make a fool of myself, that might get her to warm up to me a bit…

"Fred!" George hisses. "What are you doing?"

I've been waving my wand in little circles as I've been thinking, but the spell we're casting requires complex twirling. No wonder old Flitwick's staring at me. I clear my throat and try to copy my twin, who continues to shoot me questioning looks for the remainder of the period.

"Fred," George begins as soon as we step out of the classroom, "is something wrong? You haven't laughed at a single joke I've cracked today."

"Everything's fine," I assure him. "Just, uh, thinking about the joke shop." _And wondering how to get Angelina to stop being mad at me_, I add silently.

"But what does Angelina have to do with our joke shop?" George asks with a sly look on his face.

"What?" Had I accidentally said that last part out loud?

"Don't think I didn't notice you looking over at her every five seconds in Charms," George teases. "What was that about?"

"Angelina and I are in a fight," I tell him. My voice sounds more miserable than I intended.

"Tough," he says sympathetically. "What were you fighting about?"

"Just joke shop stuff," I mutter. "No big deal."

"Oh, I see what this is about. She found out about the Blood Blisterpod antidote, didn't she?"

Bugger. Didn't take him long to figure things out. "Er, well, yeah," I confess.

He shakes his head. "Bad luck, mate. What are you going to do?"

"I was thinking I might just let it blow over," I say casually. I'm pretty proud of this plan.

"You don't want to do that," George warns. "You need to apologize or something, at the very least. Her practice was ruined!"

"How was that my fault, exactly?" I say incredulously.

"If you hadn't-"

"Are you taking her side?" I interrupt. "I thought I was doing something good, I had no idea I gave Katie the wrong-"

"You just have to try and see things from her point of view," George says patiently. "As far as she's concerned, your 'help' made things worse than they already were."

I throw my arms up. "But my intentions were good!" I am not about to admit that our Captain might have a point. She's right often enough, why give her this victory, too? I think if we were keeping score, and every time one of us was right about something we received a point, the score would be something along the lines of Fred Weasley: 1, Angelina Johnson: 1000. Angelina tends to be right about things more often than I am. I'm not sure if it's a girl thing or an Angelina thing.

By the time we reach our Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, the seats next to Angelina are filled. How convenient for her. I sigh and plop down in a chair on the other side of the room. The last thing I plan to do is pay attention, however. My thoughts are still on Angelina and how I can get her to be my friend again.

When the professor tells us to split into pairs, I look over at Angelina. Normally she would partner with me, leaving Katie and Alicia to work together, but today she has chosen to work with Alicia, and my twin has paired with Lee Jordan, so poor Katie is forced to put up with me instead. I notice she doesn't seem particularly happy about this.

"Hey," she says unenthusiastically.

"What's up, Katie?" I'm trying to be friendly. It's not that I'm not usually friendly towards Katie, though, it's just that I don't talk to her all that often. Even though she's one of Angelina's best friends, she doesn't like to hang out with Angelina when Angelina's hanging out with me.

"Not much," she replies, looking at me suspiciously.

"Nose doing okay?" I joke, hoping she doesn't think I'm being insincere by making light of it.

"Yeah, it's fine now," she says.

"I'm sorry about that. I thought I was giving you something else."

"No worries," she says with a small smile. "Angelina's still angry about it, though."

I roll my eyes. "Trust me, I'm well aware of that." Unfortunately.

"At least your heart was in the right place." She pats my arm.

"Well, why can't she see that?" I complain.

"She's just been really upset about some stuff lately," she says quietly.

"Stuff?" I furrow my eyebrows. "She hasn't told me about any problems."

"Yeah, well, she wouldn't tell _you_, I expect," Katie laughs.

I bristle at her response. "What is that supposed to mean?" She's doing that thing that girls sometimes do where they get really cryptic and you can't help but wonder _what _they're talking about and _why_ they won't just tell you, for crying out loud.

"Nothing," she says quickly. "I shouldn't have said anything."

"But you did," I remind her. I'm not letting her off easy. "So what's she been talking to you about that she doesn't want me to know about?"

"Girl stuff," she says evasively.

"Ah, I see." I don't, though, not really. 'Girl stuff' could mean any number of things, couldn't it?

"We should start practicing," my partner says suddenly.

"Sure," I agree, but my heart's not in it. I quickly mutter the spell and flick my wand towards Katie. Thick, black smoke begins billowing out of the tip of my wand. I immediately run over to Katie, who has started coughing, to make sure she's okay.

"Are you okay?" I shout, intentionally blocking out the looks I'm getting from the rest of the class. I notice our teacher looking particularly unimpressed, but I ignore him, too. Bad marks don't bother me. Besides, if I somehow manage to kill Angelina's best friend, we'll never make up.

Katie gives me a strange look. "I'm fine, Fred," she says. Is it just me, or is there a suspicious tone creeping into her voice again?

"I'm so sorry," I apologize. "I guess I was distracted. You all can get back to work," I add for the onlookers' benefit. "There's nothing to see here."

She giggles a little. "Yeah, just a lovesick idiot and his unfortunate partner."

"Har har," I say sarcastically, for two reasons. First, I'm not _in love_ with Angelina. I like the girl, sure, but I don't _love _her. And even if I did, there's no way _Katie_ _Bell_ would ever know about it because she can't keep her mouth shut. Second, Katie is not what I would call "unfortunate," even when paired with the genius who made smoke come out of his wand instead of a spell. She's actually quite pretty (though not as pretty as Angelina), and she's a great Chaser to boot. This would probably explain why George fancies her, actually. He's never said anything to me about liking her, but I've picked up on his looks and whatnot. Maybe it's a twin thing.

Speaking of George…he looks miffed about something. What is it with everyone today?

I let Katie practice the spell, smoke free, for the remainder of the period. I know better than to attempt it again while I'm fretting about Angelina's anger. It's not like her to hold a grudge this long. The last time she was this mad at me was way back in our second year, when I tricked her into thinking that she was playing Quidditch all wrong. I don't know why she believed me, knowing that I enjoyed a good joke, but she did. That was one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made, though; you don't mess with Angelina when it comes to Quidditch. If it's anything else, she takes it in stride, bless her. She's usually such a good sport, which is why it's still hard for me to grasp that her anger hasn't dissipated.

As I leave the classroom, I expect George to attack me about my behavior again, but he's nowhere to be found. I blink, wondering where he disappeared to so quickly. He's not in the Gryffindor common room (Angelina is, but she sends me such an icy glare that I think it best to leave her alone), nor is he in the library. I peek into the Great Hall, but he's not there, either. Whenever I see one of our friends, I ask if they've seen him, but apparently no one has. I need him to tell me how everything is going to work out with Angelina (I hate to admit it, but I'm having serious doubts), but of course he can't do that if he can't be found.

I return to the common room and plop myself down in a cushy armchair. I'm in no mood for studying, though, so when a group of book-minded youngsters comes traipsing in, I vacate my spot and head upstairs to my dorm with the idea of having some quiet thinking time or perhaps a nap. And that's when I finally find my elusive identical brother: he's busy snogging Katie Bell like there's no tomorrow.

And maybe there won't be, when I'm through with him. Git.

**CatB: Reviews make my day! If you loved or hated anything about this, PLEASE let me know. What are you waiting for?**


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